First and last

and goes inside

or leaves upon a bus

speaks to you for the last time:

most times you do not know

the lastness of a word upon the air

Q. B. Willowby “Last Warmth”, quoted in the introduction to “The Anatomy of Bereavement: A Handbook for the Caring Professions”.   

July 21^st 2012 was the third anniversary of Jen’s death. In the lead up to that occasion, I sifted again through my memories to try to separate out some lasts – the last cup of tea together, the last kiss, the last words we spoke to each other. Many of those turn out to be quite difficult to define, simply because at the time we weren’t aware it was the last one. My diary entries for Jen’s final week are full of mundane details, continued preparations for a future that never happened. It’s surprising that even in Jen’s situation, with her body being over-run by secondaries, death can still catch you unawares, like the awkward guest who turns up an hour before the party. This in turn pales beside the experience of those I know who’ve had a partner die a sudden death from a heart attack or a car accident. Not only was there no opportunity to prepare or say goodbye, but those ‘lasts’ are even harder to remember. One friend recalls her husband’s last meal but not the last thing he said to her. 

As I’ve reflected before, it’s not the last words I said to Jen that matter most, but the words we said to each other every day. We at least had ten months to prepare, and even through the slow agonies of chemo we could treasure being together. It shouldn’t have needed imminent death to make us appreciate each other more, but of course it’s hard not to take the people you love for granted. I’ve also realized that the focus on lastness, and indeed the whole backwards-looking perspective of grief, can also stop me noticing and appreciating firsts. In a symmetric way to lasts, it’s often not clear when they happen that they are firsts, harbingers of later events.

One first though has been particularly prominent this winter, and that is the first relationship I’ve been in since Jen died. It’s sadly over now, and in the end it was relatively brief – less than a couple of months, with perhaps another month of discussions leading up to it, although we’d first met and talked before Easter. Nevertheless there was a lot of emotional intensity to that period and many special moments e.g. the first time in twenty years that I’d asked a woman out on a date. It’s also presented numerous challenges, principally in talking to my boys, and also in telling Jen’s family and close friends. Everyone was very supportive, for which I’m immensely grateful, but I never felt I could take that for granted, as I knew it would feel strange for those closest to Jen. 

This relationship has altered my experience of grief - not in some crude arithmetic where joy exceeds loss, but in the complexity of simultaneous emotions e.g. the excitement of getting to know another person, and the recognition that this is only possible because Jen is dead. Indeed there have been occasions where I’ve missed Jen more than ever. I’ve hesitated to blog about this relationship until now, partly for reasons of privacy on both sides, but also because of my desire to tell many friends and family individually, rather than have them find out here. Yet it felt false to continue blogging without being able to acknowledge the considerable impact of this event on my life. I shall hereafter refer to her as F (for Femina), matching the Latin flavor of our blog identities. I had hoped that when it all ‘settled down’ I would introduce the topic with F’s assistance. But it’s too late for that now, and in a curious parallel I can only partly recall the lastness – the last time when everything seemed ‘on track’ before F announced it was over. Amongst the next few blog entries, my plan is to explore the interaction of love and grief within my life.